Saturday, June 16, 2007

Skitch - Web2.0 Tool that ROCKS!!!

So here's a great Web2.0 story...

I'm checking Twitter via my PDA (Treo soon to be iPhone). My friend Josh twits that Tara Hunt of Horsepigcow has invites to Skitch and he provides a tinyurl in his twit. I click the link and Tara has a web page (twitter page actually) asking to email her for an invite. I send an email and ask nicely (borderline begging) for an invite to the skitch beta.An email arrives from skitch with an invitation from Tara. So psyched! I twitter a thankyou to Tara...not sure if she saw it, but hey Tara and Josh...THANKS! I click the link and I'm taken to the skitch site where I sign up for my account. Easy signups...I love those. I download the app, install, and OMG!!! Very nice. (It could be that I'm still easily enamored with how easy it is to install apps on a Mac but that's another post)A very cool, short, informative quicktime movie launches with an introduction to the app...I watch it...the whole thing...I'm a guy...I never read/listen to instructions...what's up with that!?

I like tools that enhance the rip/mix/feed experience. So far this little app covers many of the, damn-I-wish-this-was-easier items on my wishlist...and whole ton of items I'm happy to see but didn't know I wanted. Check this out...Snap: grabs a screen capture. I grab the Skitch logo. So cool and so easy.Text tool: I write "SO COOL" on the screenshot.

Now the cool part. Hhhmm. What do I do with the photo?There are many options here but my PDA is sitting right next to me and see Send to Bluetooth...perfect!

Send to BlueTooth: I select this from the File dropdown menu. ding, ding, ding, the Treo connects, the file transfers, and its now ready to go...literally.

But that's not even the half of it...not even close. Go ahead and send the image to myskitch.com as well. Now I have autogenerated URLs The Embed didn't look so good, so what you are seeing is a screenshot using the Direct URL option. I clicked copy and then pasted it into an img tag.

I don't know when they are coming out of beta and how much all of this is going to cost. But I can say that there is a HUGE market for small imaging apps that connect to the rest of your digital life. Even if you have Photoshop (I do), little apps like Skitch just make life SO much easier and a heck of a lot more fun!You're going to see a lot more stuff as I run this cool app through its paces on the blog and elsewhere. Oh yea, I forgot to mention that I don't have any invites to send out...but I'm currently begging for some, so hold tight.